Category Archives: War with Iran

The Unintended, the Foreseen, and the Defamatory

Posted on by under cancel culture, Electoral Ethics and Politics, Fatwas, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

“We absolutely cannot and should not ever be cheerleading and wishing for the deaths of Israeli children…”
–Sue Altman

Sue Altman and Adam Hamawy are both Democratic candidates for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. A controversy has recently erupted over Altman’s response to comments Hamawy made in an interview with Hasan Piker. The basics of the controversy are nicely captured in this short piece in Jewish Insider. I’ll quote the first few paragraphs, but urge readers to read the whole thing. Continue reading →

Sue Altman Is No Progressive

Posted on by under cancel culture, Electoral Ethics and Politics, Guest Post, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

Sue Altman’s Rejection of Reparations, Attack on Adam Hamawy, and Pro-War Politics Show She Is Out of Step With Progressive Values

by Dr Sadaf Jaffer and Minister Elorm Ocansey

On the eve of his death, Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. stood in Memphis as a witness. The speech we remember as “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” was a warning. Dr. King spoke of wages withheld, of labor exploited, of systems that consumed Black bodies and called it order. He spoke of a people who had been given a check marked “insufficient funds,” and he dared to say what too many still refuse to say: justice requires repayment. The Promised Land Dr. King saw was not symbolic. It was material. It was economic. It was reparative. New Jersey, for all its progressive language, is not innocent in this story. The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, through the work of the New Jersey Reparations Council, has laid before us a document that reads less like a report and more like a reckoning. Page after page, it testifies: That slavery here was not distant, but deliberate. That segregation was not accidental, but engineered. That the racial wealth gap is not unfortunate, but designed. Continue reading →

Mapp to Nowhere

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

I get home, look at my mail, and find a solicitation to vote for Adrian O. Mapp, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 12th Congressional District. Mapp is “proudly endorsed” by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a person I respect. What does Mapp stand for? He tells us:

  1. Housing: he’ll expand affordable housing and protect working families from rising housing costs. 
  2. Healthcare: he’ll protect access to affordable, quality healthcare for families, seniors, and those most in need.
  3. Education: he’ll open doors to opportunity through education, job training, and relief from crushing debt.
  4. Immigration: he’ll support fair, humane, immigration reform rooted in dignity, security, and common sense.
  5. Taxes: he’ll fight for tax fairness and relief for New Jersey homeowners and middle-class families.

Continue reading →

Deviant Causal Chain

Posted on by under activism, Neutrality and Complicity, slices of life, War with Iran

I was just at a protest of the Iran War where a passerby accused us, heatedly, of “killing Ukrainians.” Of all the accusations directed my way in years of protests, I don’t think I’ve ever heard an accusation quite that baffling. By not fighting a war in Iran, we are somehow killing Ukrainians. No matter how I try to conceptualize this, I can’t.

There’s a cottage industry in philosophy on “deviant causal chains,” cases where an agent’s intention causes an action, but in an unexpected or “wayward” manner, leading to the intended result without genuine agency or control. Add this one to the list, I guess, but don’t ask me what happens next. Or what happened in the first place.

ICE-Free Zones in West Orange

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran, West Orange

Back in February, I wrote a post called “ICE Out of West Orange,” and sent it to the West Orange Town Council. I’m gratified to see that West Orange Councilwoman Joyce Rudin has endorsed a version of the proposal I made, and done so for the right reasons. I don’t know if my post had any influence on her or not; my point is that what she’s endorsing is exactly consistent with what I said. Continue reading →

JROTC Out of West Orange

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran, West Orange

I’ve mentioned a few times that I split my time between Princeton and West Orange, New Jersey, which is why some of my activism focuses on the one place, and some on the other. West Orange High School has a JROTC Air Force program which it never tires of advertising. The High School recently advertised its Student Life Expo for Incoming Freshmen, to take place April 22. High school freshmen are typically students entering ninth grade, i.e., 14 or 15 years old. Among the student groups advertised for such students, under the rubric of “Honor Societies,” is “Kitty Hawk Air Honor Society (JROTC).”* Continue reading →

Hayek and Hormuz

Posted on by under Hayek, War with Iran

The core idea of Hayek’s famous “The Use of Knowledge in Society” is the claim that prices act as signals that compress vast amounts of dispersed, rapidly-changing information into something that ground-level decisions-makers can use without knowing the underlying details. You don’t have to know anything about oil or gas production to know how much gasoline you can afford to put in your car, or how much driving you should do between paychecks, etc. Likewise, a gas station manager doesn’t have to know anything about geopolitics or warfare strategy or the Strait of Hormuz to know that a shortage is coming, and that he has to up the price of gas at his tank. The resulting reduction in epistemic burdens is supposed to be the great virtue of the free market pricing system. Continue reading →

A Wake Up Call for Hillsdale College

Posted on by under activism, Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, pedagogy, War with Iran

From the Hillsdale Current, News and Happenings from Hillsdale College, April 11, 2026:

Pentagon to Send Officers to Hillsdale

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently announced that the military would begin sending officers to Hillsdale College for graduate studies as part of an effort to cut ties with universities that promote “woke” ideology. President Arnn joined Fox Business to discuss his conversation with Secretary Hegseth about this honor, Hillsdale’s principle of refusing taxpayer funding, and its history of educating military leaders.

Continue reading →

Get ROTC Off Campus Now

Posted on by under activism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Princeton University, War with Iran

Another letter to The Daily Princetonian, likely to go unprinted. Do I sound like a broken record? Yes. Do I care? No.

The photo below is of members of Princeton Army ROTC this morning, ambling from some ROTC training back to Forbes College. It’s all obviously a game to them: ROTC may as well be some alternative sort of NCAA sport. Somebody needs to tell these students that the sport for which they’re training is civilizational annihilation. Are they willing to play that game, or do they think they should demur? No one at Princeton seems to have the courage or honesty to raise this question directly with them, much less with their officers. I have to confess that I myself was waiting for a bus when I took this picture, and didn’t have the nerve to forget the commute, bail out on my work day, walk over to them, and initiate a conversation. We all have an excuse for inaction, but eventually the excuses have to give way to action–mine, yours, everyone’s.  Continue reading →